Housing Inequalities, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System: The Shifting Context in England and Wales since the 1980s

Author(s):  
Emily Gray ◽  
Phil Mike Jones ◽  
Stephen Farrall

One of the first steps Margaret Thatcher’s government took following their election in 1979 was to introduce legislation that enabled sitting council tenants to buy their council homes. This chapter assesses the legacy of this policy on the experiences of homelessness and contact with the criminal justice system of two cohorts of UK citizens. Using longitudinal studies of people born in 1958 and 1970, the authors explore how policies intended to turn council tenants into property owners, may have also increased the risks of homelessness, and contact with the criminal justice system for others as well as subsequent generations. The authors assess how legislative changes can shape the lives of citizens, and highlight some of the unintended consequences of the ‘right to buy’ policy. Our chapter, therefore is essentially about the investigation of the outcomes of radical system deregulation. Our chapter draws upon concepts derived from life-course studies and historical institutionalist thinking in order to understand in-depth how radical policy changes may shape and alter the lives of ordinary citizens.

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamil Mujuzi

South African law provides for circumstances in which victims of crime may participate in the criminal justice system at the investigation, prosecution (trial), sentencing and parole stages. In South Africa, a prison inmate has no right to parole although the courts have held that they have a right to be considered for parole. In some cases, the victims of crime have a right to make submissions to the Parole Board about whether the offender should be released on parole. Section 299A of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides for the right of victims of crime to participate in parole proceedings. The purpose of this article is to discuss section 299A and illustrate ways in which victims of crime participate in the parole process. The author also recommends ways in which victims’ rights in section 299A of the Criminal Procedure Act could be strengthened.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-21
Author(s):  
Harini Kav

This paper looks at the criminal case of Deborah Peagler and the California habeas law and explores the effectiveness of legislative changes to domestic battery laws as a mechanism for change in the criminal justice system in regards to its treatment of domestic violence survivors accused of committing a crime against their abuser. It focuses on the androcentric and racialized nature of the criminal justice system and argues that while legislative changes brought about by social movements facilitate opportunities for women like Peagler to pursue just outcomes, they do not counter the gender biases prevalent in the justice system and, alone, are insufficient in improving the treatment of domestic violence survivors in the criminal justice system.


Author(s):  
Sophy Baird

Children are afforded a number of protections when they encounter the criminal justice system. The need for special protection stems from the vulnerable position children occupy in society. When children form part of the criminal justice system, either by being an offender, victim, or witness, they may be subjected to harm. To mitigate against the potential harm that may be caused, our law provides that criminal proceedings involving children should not be open to the public, subject to the discretion of the court. This protection naturally seems at odds with the principle of open justice. However, the courts have reconciled the limitation with the legal purpose it serves. For all the protection and the lengths that the law goes to protect the identity of children in this regard, it appears there is an unofficial timer dictating when this protection should end. The media have been at the forefront of this conundrum to the extent that they believe that once a child (offender, victim, or witness) turns 18 years old, they are free to reveal the child's identity. This belief, grounded in the right to freedom of expression and the principle of open justice, is at odds with the principle of child's best interests, right to dignity and the right to privacy. It also stares incredulously in the face of the aims of the Child Justice Act and the principles of restorative justice. Measured against the detrimental psychological effects experienced by child victims, witnesses, and offenders, this article aims to critically analyse the legal and practical implications of revealing the identity of child victims, witnesses, and offenders after they turn 18 years old.


2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Rena Yulia

AbstractThe victim of domestic violence had needed of protection concept thatdifferent with another victim of violent crime. Participation of victim haswant to give justice for all. It is, because punishment to offender brings theimpact for victim. Restorative justice is a concept in criminal justice systemwhich is participation victim with it. The present of criminal justice system isthe offender oriented. Victim has not position to considerate offenderpunishment. Only offender can get the right and the victim hopeless. In thedomestic violence, victim and offender have relationship. Because there area family. · So, probability they have some interest in economic and relation.When wife become a victim and husband as offender, his wife hasdependency economic from her husband. It means, if husband get a decisionfrom judge, his wife will be suffer. Domestic violence is different crime. So, itis necessQ/y to made some different concept. In this article, will discussedabout alternative of legal protection for victim of domestic violence incriminal justice system to protect the victim


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Howe ◽  
Jeffrey Monaghan

Engaging scholarship from sociologies of security to protest policing, this article explores how risk management and actuarial tools have been operationalized in Canadian policing of Indigenous protests. We detail RCMP actuarial tools used to assess individual and group risk by tracing how these techniques are representative of much older trends in the criminal justice system surrounding the management of risk, but also have been advanced by contemporary databanking and surveillance capacities. Contesting public claims of police impartiality and objectivity, we highlight how the construction of riskiness produces an antagonism towards “successful” Indigenous protests. Though the RCMP regularly claim to “protect and facilitate the right to lawful advocacy, protest and dissent,” we show how these practices of strategic incapacitation exhibit highly antagonistic forms of policing that are grounded in a rationality that seeks to demobilize and delegitimize Indigenous social movements.


Semiotica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (229) ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Tara Suri

AbstractThis paper considers Canada’s young offenders in the context from which they enter the youth criminal courtroom. To determine how youth criminal justice courts violate the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), this analysis relates said context to several phenomena, including legal linguistics, oral language competency, literacy, communicative competency, non-verbal communication, the physical structure of youth courtrooms, and legal translation (Government of Canada eds. 2018. Youth criminal justice act. Ottawa: Government of Canada.). As a result of the standards of procedural communication upheld by the Canadian criminal justice system, young people’s rights, including the right to be respected regardless of cultural, ethnic, or linguistic differences, the right to be heard and to participate in proceedings, the right to be sentenced meaningfully, the right to privacy, and the right to be tried in a timely manner are abused in the youth criminal courtroom. Although insufficient structures of procedural communication cause these issues and are beyond the control of counsel, defense counsel are often blamed for their effects. Legal professionals must make important adjustments such as altering the formal speech required in youth criminal courtrooms, employing legal professionals with the role of translating legal jargon to young people in the courtroom, and closing youth courtrooms off from the public to reduce the YCJA violations occurring in youth criminal justice court. These adjustments are ultimately the responsibility of the Canadian criminal justice system.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Biber

A long-held and fundamental principle of our criminal justice system is that people accused of crimes have a right to silence, arising from the presumption of innocence. Rules of evidence try to protect this ‘right’ during trial, by ensuring that juries understand that adverse inferences cannot be drawn from the silence of the accused. Silence, in court, can mean nothing, and we are not to speculate about what might motivate an accused person to remain silent, or what they might have said had they spoken. However, an examination of the jurisprudence in this area shows that the law is often not dealing with actual silence; sometimes when the law refers to the ‘right to silence’, it seems to mean a ‘refusal to hear’. In other instances, there is actual silence, and yet the law refuses to subject that silence to any critical interpretation, insisting that we cannot infer anything from it. While we have learned, from theatre, music, linguistics, religion and psychology, to develop sophisticated means for interpreting silence, the law demands that we set aside these interpretive tools, hearing silence that isn’t there, and inferring nothing about something.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 107-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi

Private prosecutions are one of the ways through which crime victims in many European countries participate in the criminal justice system. However, there seems to be a reluctance at the Council of Europe level to strengthen a victim’s right to institute a private prosecution. In a 1985 Recommendation, the Committee of Ministers stated that ‘[t]he victim should have the right to ask for a review by a competent authority of a decision not to prosecute, or the right to institute private proceeding.’ Later in 2000 in the Recommendation Rec (2000)19 on the role of public prosecution in the criminal justice system, the Committee of Ministers calls upon Member States to ‘authorise’ victims to institute private prosecutions. Directive 2012/29/eu of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 is silent on private prosecutions. The dg Justice Guidance Document related to the transposition and implementation of Directive 2012/29/eu of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 discourages private prosecutions. However, private prosecutions take part in many European countries. It is thus important to highlight some of the issues that have emerged from different European countries on the issue of private prosecutions. Case law from the European Court of Human Rights shows that private prosecutions take place in many European countries. This article, based on case law of the European Court of Human Rights, highlights the following issues with regards to private prosecutions: the right to institute a private prosecution; who may institute a private prosecution? private prosecution after state declines to prosecute; state intervention in a private prosecution; and private prosecution as a domestic remedy which has to be exhausted before a victim of crime approaches the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that there is a need to recognise the right to private prosecution at the European Union level.


SEEU Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
Olga Kosevaliska

Abstract The right to a fair trial is implemented in our criminal procedure and is one of the core values of our criminal justice system. This right is absolute and can’t be limited on any legal base. Its essence is fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial court with guaranteeing of all the minimum rights of the defendant. One of those minimum rights is the right of equity of arms between the parties, the prosecutor and the defense. In our Law on Criminal Procedure, it is provided that the defense has the same rights and duties as the prosecutor except those rights that belong to the prosecutor as a state authority. Therefore, the purpose of this article is elaborating the right of ‘equity of arms’ and its misunderstanding in practice. Hence, we intend to show some case studies in which some evidence are not considered by the court just because they are not proposed by the prosecutor and they are crucial for the verdict.


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